


a rose and a dryad

by flowerpetal



Series: gentle lovers [2]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: F/F, atmospheric and soft and very very very gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 06:08:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12834924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerpetal/pseuds/flowerpetal
Summary: It’s ironic really, that the flowers on her queen’s crown are hers.





	a rose and a dryad

She’d had too much mulled wine. That much was obvious, her footsteps had become unstable and her speaking increasingly filled with giggles. The dancing hall seemed like a golden glass cage she could not escape from, filled with light and music and chatter, empty of escape routes but for the door leading to the garden. And so she ran to it, and down the stairs to the rose bushes, tearing her skirt as she jumped over them and, slipping in the mud, fell to the grass.

A laugh escaped her – not the reserved chuckle she feigned in front of the court ladies, but a genuine laugh of content and happiness.

“Having fun I see,” came a voice from her side. Too tired and, more importantly, too drunk to check, she replied “Loads. Care to join?”

She heard the swishing of skirts and suddenly there was a body beside her, lying in the mud and smiling up to the sky. The curls of her hair spread out over the pillow of grass and the golden flowers on her head shone in the moonlight like a halo.

“My queen,” she uttered. “Forgive me, for I did not know.”

“Do not worry, love,” her queen replied. “You have done no wrong – you have simply shown me the pleasure of life I had long forgotten existed.”

“Do you not have a younger sister to do so?”

“Yes, but she is allowed many things I am not, and she often misunderstands.”

They lie in silence. Watching the stars, feeling the earth shift beneath their bodies, shivering with cold in the summer night.

 

The routine is repeated each ball after. Intoxicated and jubilant she meets her queen in the garden, and they tell each other tales of adventures between the confines of thorns, keeping out any intruders who might seek to disturb their peace.

One night, her queen presses a kiss to her lips. The next night, she returns it. And so they go on.

 

The white linen of the sheets on her bed is smeared with lipstick stains. Green and red – suitable, for a gentle queen should wear the colour of roses and a dryad that of her tree. It’s ironic really, that the flowers on her queen’s crown are hers.

 

“Must you leave me?”

“It’s only for a night,” her queen replies.

“One night too many.”

“I’ll be back in your bed before dusk tomorrow, love. You worry for nothing.”

“You give your word, my queen?”

“I do, love. Cross my heart.”

 

The dusk of the next day goes by and there is no sign of her queen. She swallows her tears and holds strong, determined to wait for her queen to make good on her words.

Yet a fortnight passes and her queen still does not return. Neither do her siblings. It is only their horses who gallop into the castle, backs bare and breath caught between shouts of pained grief. She joins their cries. She takes control of the castle, the power thrust into her hands under the cover of her queen’s wishes and she lives to see the kingdom fall apart, lives to see it fall and blames herself for all of it. She could not be as strong as her queen, could not rule as well.

And when she dies, her tree filled with rot and returning finally to the dirt from which she was created, the wind whispers a sorrowful tune into the remaining Narnians’ ears.

 

She doesn’t meet her queen in Aslan’s land like she had expected. Much time passes and she hears stories whispered of how her queen had returned to Narnia once more, hears the tales told from soldiers who had perished in the battles fought against the Telmarines and glows in the knowledge that her queen still lives in happiness and joy. She holds strong and sheds no tears for she lives to see her lover loved and cared for, lives to see her happy.

When the friends of Narnia enter Aslan’s land and her queen is not with them, she breaks. A broken heart can only take so much. But she waits and waits, hopes her queen has not forsaken her as they say and that one day, one day she will surely return. After all, the gentle queen gave her word and one word from her holds stronger than a million whispers from them.


End file.
